Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [108]
Fortunately for all concerned, his face color quickly returned to normal, he recovered, smiled crookedly, and continued moving around the room, pendulating slowly, showing off the other amenities—thermostat, extra blankets, map to the fire escape, his saggy ass—and each time Mindie was directly in his path, which forced her to leap around the room like a thick-legged frog escaping a French chef—bounding over chairs, up on the desk, rolling over the bed. Eventually she settled behind me, using my body as some kind of antiballistic, naked-man defense system.
At last the bellman finished his tour of the room, I tipped him, and with a nod and a grin, he turned and wobbled out. Once he had closed the door behind him, Mindie let out the breath she’d been holding since we’d entered and walked into the bathroom to run water.
I sat down and grabbed a phone, as somewhere behind me curtains were drawn, faucets cranked, and water splashed. I began to dial, and Mindie stuck her head through the bathroom doorway.
“You’re not staying in here, are you?” she asked, rather pointedly.
“I was going to call…”
“You can do that later. I want some privacy.”
“But…I’ll be out here.”
“I’m not going to be naked in the same hotel room with you.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“You were just naked with me in a restaurant.”
“No, I wasn’t!”
“Yes you…”
“That story never leaves this town, you understand?”
I goggled, silently for a moment, then sighed heavily and nodded toward the bathroom door. “Fine. Whatever. Just close the…”
“Is that going to prevent you from imagining me in here naked?”
I sat there, moon-faced, wondering what was going to start me imagining her naked. She took my silence for something else.
“No,” she said significantly. “I didn’t think so. Now that you’ve seen them, the temptation is simply going to be too much for you. You go find something to do. Maybe order the roll away.”
“Roll away?”
“Corky, there’s only one bed.”
“We’re engaged.”
“But not married. And may I remind you whose fault that is?”
Mine, apparently.
“And besides,” she said. “I’m still annoyed with you. Even if you didn’t sleep with that model in the closet, or that black tramp, I think a term of abstinence is still in order after all you’ve done.”
I continued to stare blankly.
“And for your attitude,” she snarled. “Which I must say isn’t improving as time goes on. Give me about an hour, then you can come back and do your phone things.”
I stood up.
“And bring me some chocolates when you do,” she said. “A good kind, like Godiva. Not whatever that crappy stuff is you keep around your house. It’s been a trying day, and I need some pampering.”
Outside in the hallway I stood silently and wondered what to do next. I sighed heavily (something I seem to do a lot), thinking hard, but came up with nothing, and in frustration I jammed my hands into my pockets.
The envelope crinkled.
I pulled it out and removed the keys Petal had braved the naked hit squad to return to me. I began to wad the thing up when I noticed something green still inside.
A note.
I slipped it out and unfolded it.
My heart jumped. Ms. Nuckeby. And her handwriting was terrible.
I looked at my watch. 1:45.
My heart jumped again in the other direction. It was doing calisthenics. I only had fifteen minutes to find out what the Little Giant Head was and get behind it.
Ms. Nuckeby.
Wisper.
The hounds were chasing my deer again!
But should I go? Did this have any chance of working? Ms. Nuckeby had been a model. Clothes couldn’t be entirely foreign to her. Maybe she could be comfortable living in my world. We could still be naked most of the time if we stayed in a lot.
Gloop.
But what about her brother, River the Roadblock?
Damn him. He really had my dander up. Whatever ‘dander’ might be. Add that to the list. I refused to be bullied…by man, or penis. I was going to see her in spite of